Saturday, October 07, 2006

Tigers Eliminate Yankees

I'm watching Kenny Rogers spray champagne on Tigers fans, and it's one of the coolest celebrations I've seen between an athlete and the fans. And it's so appropriate for this easy-to-like Tigers team, who dispatched the easy-to-hate Yankees team.

Schadenfreude is in FULL EFFECT.

After Kenny Rogers last night and Jeremy Bonderman in Game 4, I'm liking these Tigers more and more as the new incarnation of last year's White Sox, who rode four scintillating starting pitchers to a World Series title.

Statistically the Yankees did have a much better offense / lineup than the Tigers this season.

They scored 100+ more runs, as a team hit 10 points higher than Detroit, OBS was 34 points higher, and if you want to be all Moneyball, the Yanks OPS was .824, to Detroit's .777

In the end, the better TEAM won, and as Yankee fan I hope that they don't trade A-Rod, and realize the problem is what it has been since 2002...having overpaid pitchers who don't produce.

Pavano, Johnson, Wright are all to blame for this season. A staff of young arms who didn't know they were supposed to lose beat them straight up. Throw in Rogers having the best performance of his career, and my NY hat is off to Leyland's club.

Only thing negative I have to say about this team is, DET is celebrating like they won the WS, not the ALDS.

Bonderman was a S-T-U-D.Five no hit innings, one earned run in eight and third...the dude is 23 YEARS OLD! He was pounding the zone like Schilling in his prime and took the Yankees completely out of their game. Give some credit to Pudge for that, especially since the knock against him in Texas was his ability to call games...and how about that Tiger line-up mashing the Yankees' pitching? A bunch of so-called no names have been ripping the cover off of the ball!Torre may stay but A-Rod has to go.Cashman? Probably gone. Sheffield? Gone.The Big Eunuch? Gone.The Tigers running on to the field clutching champagne bottles and spraying down the crowd is the coolest postgame celebration I've ever seen.Dunno if they can do the same against the A's in a seven game series but I won't count them out until the final strike.Meanwhile... Tha Yankees Suck...THAAAAAAAAAAAA Yankees SUCK!

I haven't paid much attention to all the A-Rod griping, and always figured the percentages would right themselves eventually. But after watching that performance, I'm thinking: not so much. He really looked lost out there. I'm officially calling it a pattern and not just an anomaly.

Meanwhile, the playoff trend of late seems to be pitchers that step up come playoff time--guys that have the stuff but not the regular season results to be dominant and then put it all together on the big stage. Exhibit A: Josh Beckett. Exhibit B: A bunch of the White Sox pitchers. It's further proof of the old wisdom that pitching trumps all come October. But it also makes the playoffs pretty unpredicatble these days. The winning team is the one that catches pitcching lightning in a bottle. (And certianly not the one that didn't have much pitching to begin with--the Yankees).

so if the yankees suck, how is it a great accomplishment that the tigers won? you should pull a lou holtz and say that your tigers just beat the 2nd best team in the game.

Cashman gone? Doubt it, just signed a contract extension. Torre might be gone, but he has 1 year left and I don't think you fire a guy who probably had his best season as manager. Keep in mind that Swindal runs the show now, not George.

Show me a team that can lose this production from the lineup for the whole season

.290 34 123.305 25 116

and still win their division.

Not to mention 8 mil per sitting on the DL instead of starting every 5th day.

if they can get Sheff down to 10 mil and he plays first, i wouldn't be suprised to see him back.

trade a-rod for pitching, and I won't be happy, but I can live with it.

Unit is old, so is Moose for 17.5 next year.

The Yanks need to get younger, not ditch the front office and manager.

Cashman's front office moves ( be they his or Torre's or the Boss's own ) haven't worked! The Yankees have lost in the last three playoff series and I don't think that the man in charge is going to allow any more profligate spending on a team that can't make it to the show. Cashman is gone, Torre may be next and I see a major change in the roster next season. It's time to back off of the stupidly huge payroll and get back to the farm.

I fully approve of the big celebration by the Detroit players, being that nobody expected them to win the series, and that it's been so long (22 years?) since the Tigers have won a postseason series... this is their first winning season in quite a while as well. Let'em celebrate, I say.

Hey Dan Mega, the better team THIS SERIES won, but the better team overall didnt. Gotta give Detroit credit for putting two great pitching performances together for games 3 and 4. The Yankees should of put the series away in game 2 against Verlander when they had the chance.

As for changes that will be made, Torre is as good as gone, A-rod who knows and Cashman isn't going anywhere.

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DanShanoff.com is a sports-blog spin-off of my long-time ESPN.com column, "The Daily Quickie." Anchored by an early-morning post of must-know topics, the blog is updated frequently throughout the day with new posts and user comments.